When newly harvested wheat is milled to flour without aging, the flour often does not produce an appropriate processing characteristics and product qualities for farinaceous baking compositions. Consequently, to establish consistent baking properties, newly harvested wheat is typically aged more than three months before it is milled. The aging process, however, not only requires significant storage capacity and inventory cost but also varies according to the growing and harvesting conditions for the wheat. Consequently, commercial millers and bakers seek methods to shorten the aging and account for the variation in the milling quality of newly harvested wheat. Usually these methods involve adjusting the added water content and other ingredients of farinaceous baking compositions based upon the characteristics of the newly harvested wheat. Nevertheless, the characteristics of baking compositions formulated in this fashion are difficult to manage and do not substantially remain constant for a particular harvest. For example, although the processing and baking characteristics of the flour are tested by the miller, by the time the flour is received by the baking plant, these characteristics oftentimes have changed. As a result, doughs, batters and baking compositions made with newly milled flours often have inappropriate rheologies and do not bake as desired, and the resulting baked products do not have appropriate product qualities. Due to these inconsistent characteristics of flour milled from newly harvested wheat, there must be periodic changes in mix formulations to provide doughs, batters and baked goods of acceptable quality. The commercial producer of farinaceous baked goods and baking compositions is faced with an expensive and cumbersome routine of revising formulations and processing conditions in order to compensate for variations and maintain high product quality. Such modifications are not only time-consuming but often are less than successful.
Therefore, an object of the invention is to develop a method to produce a flour of improved and consistent processability from newly harvested wheat grain. A further object is to rapidly convert newly harvested wheat grain into a flour with desirable baking characteristics. Yet another object is to develop a method for this conversion that is economical and can be adapted to commercial scale milling.